"The violent road to division
The Cyprus Republic, which was established in 1960, collapsed in 1963 after Archbishop Makarios’ 13-points proposal for the amendment of the constitution. A detailed account of the ensuing crisis is given in Makarios Droushiotis’ book The First Partition, which has been published in English. The excerpt below details the shocking events of December1963 as Cyprus hovered on the brink of war with Turkey.
The Turkish Cypriot extremist organisation TMT had been active in Cyprus since 1959, while in 1961 the then Interior Minister Polycarpos Yiorkadjis, with the blessing of Makarios, had set up a Greek Cypriot equivalent known as the ‘Organisation’. Neither group believed in the Republic and nor did Makarios, who had not given up the aim of Union with Greece, despite his assurances that his only concern was the improvement of the constitution."
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